Love Field ruling reaffirmed

Posted: Thursday, April 15, 1999

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The city of Fort Worth and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport's board have failed to overturn an order by federal regulators that permits wide-ranging nonstop flights out of Dallas' Love Field.

The Transportation Department, in an order made public Wednesday, reaffirmed its Dec. 22 ruling that decades-old flight restrictions at Love Field cannot override federal law. The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth had agreed to the restrictions when DFW opened.

Fort Worth, the DFW board and American Airlines have been battling in and out of court to bar Dallas from expanding air service at Love Field, as permitted by Congress in 1997. Their concern is that long-haul flights out of Love Field by start-up Legend Airlines and others would undermine DFW, which is jointly owned by the two cities.

The DFW board and Fort Worth asked the Transportation Department to reconsider its December ruling, challenging a number of findings.

But the department's acting assistant secretary for aviation, Bradley Mims, wrote in a 17-page response made public Wednesday that the two parties "failed to show that our conclusions and analysis contain any errors."

Legend Airlines, which hopes to begin flights at Love Field in the fall, welcomed the decision.

The ruling "can be no surprise to the high-priced legal armada representing Fort Worth and American Airlines," said Legend chief T. Allan McArtor. "This entire senseless legal exercise has been an abortive attempt to eliminate airline competition in the Dallas market by abusing the state and federal court system and by causing delays within the federal decision-making process."

A spokesman for Fort Worth Mayor Kenneth Barr noted that the dispute remains unresolved in a variety of legal arenas.

"This issue is probably going on about five or six different fronts, and (the DOT action) is just one of them," said the spokesman, Pat Svacina.

American Airlines, which viewed the Transportation Department's intervention as unnecessary, said the ruling has little bearing. "We think these are matters of law that need to be resolved in a court. And we expect at some point this is how they will all be resolved," said spokesman Mark Slitt.

The controversy over Love Field's future traces its roots to DFW's past.

As a prelude to building DFW, Dallas and Fort Worth agreed in 1968 to limit flights to and from Love Field. The idea was to limit the competition the soon-to-be-built airport would face - particularly from enviably located Love Field, which is just a few miles from downtown Dallas.

The current war pitting city against city and airline against airline was sparked with Congress' decision in 1997 to relax long-standing federal restrictions governing Love Field.

While the fight wages on in the courts, the Transportation Department's latest ruling should prove the end of the road for the administrative battles, department spokesman Bill Mosley said Wednesday. "As far as we're concerned, this is the end of our process," he said.

In fact, Mims' order precludes any of the warring parties from filing additional petitions with the Transportation Department until completion of the legal challenges.